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Since I’ve recently been posting about next-generation Boy-Scout equipment, here’s a brilliant little hack that has been making the rounds on blogs: How to light a fire using a Coke can and a chocolate bar.
The bottom of a Coke can has a neatly parabolic shape, which makes it terrific as a reflector; hold it up to the sun, and it can concentrate the rays into a point so tightly focused that it is of ignition intensity. The problem, as the Tracker Trail wilderness-survival blog points out, is that if you look at the bottom of a normal can …
… note the fine straight lines in the aluminum. These scatter the sun’s rays, and prevent them from being focused together into a single bright point. [snip] It needs polishing. The chocolate does an excellent job of this.
Chocolate as a polishing agent? Who knew? Apparently, it only takes about half an hour to achieve a sufficient shine; the astonishing, gleaming results are pictured above. Also check out the way-cool pix on the site to see the reflector in action, igniting some tinder!
This is totally the stuff I would have loved doing back in the Boy Scouts: Using everyday materials — and ingenious applications of science — in the service of burning an entire forest to a charred stump. Indeed, the Boy Scouts always had a hacker vibe: The handbooks were always filled with crazy projects, encouraging you to jerry-rig water filtration systems, long-distance signalling mechanisms, and ham radios. And then there was that excellent Harper’s story about the Boy Scout who built a nuclear reactor in his back yard …
(Thanks to Boing Boing for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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